It’s an enjoyable read-aloud, but it feels cast a little too closely in its predecessor’s mold and lacks the previous book’s...
Bunting and Ruzzier team up for another rollicking, rhyming search (Have You Seen My New Blue Socks?, 2013), this time for the owner of a lone shoe.
“There’s something in that tall bamboo. // Oh, my goodness! It’s a shoe! / Finders keepers? That’s not true. / I’ll find the owner of this shoe.” The shoe, a blue-and-yellow saddle shoe, dwarfs Mouse, but the rodent persists in its search, its polite manners drawing (somewhat didactic) comments from the animals it meets. It’s way too small for Tiger, too big for Spider, and useless for a bird that flies. It’s not one of Hippo’s four pairs, and Elephant only wears heels, for their slimming effect on ankles and legs. Finally, Kangaroo admits to chucking the painful new shoe and offers it to Mouse, who is quite pleased to have it…as a bed. The text and illustrations both evoke old-fashioned early readers (the morals and manners may seem old-fashioned to some as well), though their modern-day counterparts lack the challenging vocabulary: dainty, catastrophe, pursue, inquiring, inspiring, decline, astounded, considerate. Ruzzier’s pen, ink, and watercolor artwork uses spare details and white space to draw readers’ eyes.
It’s an enjoyable read-aloud, but it feels cast a little too closely in its predecessor’s mold and lacks the previous book’s freshness. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-544-30210-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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BOOK REVIEW
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